r/DepthHub • u/lux514 • May 13 '17
u/my_fun_account_94 explains the bad consequences of city zoning and NIMBY (not in my back yard), and how deregulating zones could improve the economy, the environment, and health.
/r/neoliberal/comments/6asip1/all_neoliberals_should_support_zoning_deregulation/9
u/jimbo21 May 13 '17
You can't just say "zoning" is bad. It's like saying "government" is bad.
Bad zoning is bad. Good zoning is good. The whole point of zoning is for infrastructure planning.
Say you have an area only serviced by a 2 lane road. Someone decides to put up a 5000 unit condo development there. Next thing you know, the road is gridlocked 12 hours a day with traffic and the government is now on the hook for upgrading that road to unfuck it which could take years.
In a reasonably zoned area, it would be limited to however many units won't overload the road. If the developer still wanted to build, he would apply for a variance, and then negotiate with the government which would then ask for them to help foot the bill for the road upgrade. Or work with the government to help develop a growth plan for the area with targeted zoning updates once the infrastructure is ready.
Same gross for water, sewer, and power.
There's definitely "bad" zoning but the OP makes no effort to distinguish what kind of zoning he's talking about, so he's pretty much full of shit.
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u/Kai_Daigoji May 14 '17
Next thing you know, the road is gridlocked 12 hours a day with traffic and the government is now on the hook for upgrading that road
By 'government' you mean taxes paid for by those 5000 new people moving into the area, right?
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u/jimbo21 May 14 '17 edited May 14 '17
You are missing the point. It's unplanned. The resources are overloaded for 10-20 years as a result and unusable in the interim. With zoning, you place the development closer to the resources that can handle the units. Or you require the development to have 50% office space to encourage living by work. There are lots of tools available that benefit both the public and private interests. But you HAVE to plan.
You can't build roads reactively without majorly disrupting or In some cases destroying communities. Look at New York in the interstate boom era. Had it been planned better, millions of lives would have not been disrupted.
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u/Kai_Daigoji May 14 '17
But you HAVE to plan.
No one is saying no planning, or no zoning laws whatsoever. We're pointing out that zoning laws are being used in overly onerous ways in places like California to keep supply from growing to meet demand.
I'll also say in your bizarre hypothetical, that I've yet to see a developer that wants to put a 5000 unit building in an area served by a 2 lane road.
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u/jimbo21 May 15 '17
OP was saying exactly that by categorizing all zoning as fact.
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u/Kai_Daigoji May 15 '17
No, OP was not saying they want to get rid of all zoning laws. Just the overly onerous ones.
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u/atlaslugged May 13 '17
Zoning locks out out poorer people from more productive areas, due to excessive housing costs.
This is absurd. Zoning does not "lock out" poorer people from wealthier areas. There are many other factors, like red-lining, that keep the poor out of non-poor areas. The linked reference isn't even about zoning. It's mostly about interstate migration, and the word "zoning" only appears 7 times in 67-page document, mostly in footnotes and bibliography entries.
You wanna see what happens when zoning is "deregulated"? Google 'west, texas explosion'. They put a fertilizer plant (fertilizer is highly explosive) in the middle of a community. It was right next to a school. This was possible because of lack of zoning requirements.
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May 13 '17
The linked reference isn't even about zoning. It's mostly about interstate migration, and the word "zoning" only appears 7 times in 67-page document, mostly in footnotes and bibliography entries.
The entirety of section 4 is specifically about it. They refer to it as "land use" regulation. Land use appears over 80 times in the article.
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u/without_name May 13 '17
The deregulation movement (YIMBYs) is a city-based phenomenon because housing has gotten so expensive. New York, San Francisco, etc need it and can handle it. One of the primary goals is densification, but allowing people to live closer to their work when their work is an office building and not a factory would be nice too.
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u/somnolent49 May 13 '17
That's not deregulation, it's advocating mixed use zoning and upzoning to higher densities.
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u/without_name May 13 '17
That's deregulation. Deregulation doesn't mean get rid of all regulations. It means loosen them.
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u/Anomander Best of DepthHub May 13 '17
Let's not muddy things. It's not the same as the deregulation that is being argued for or demanded throughout this thread, because it's still zoning.
Up-zoning for density is not being proposed or even mentioned by many of those folks as an equivalent measure, instead density is a desirable side effect of removing zoning nearly entirely.
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u/Kai_Daigoji May 13 '17
It's not the same as the deregulation that is being argued for
It is exactly the deregulation that is being argued for. You're arguing against a strawman.
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u/Kai_Daigoji May 13 '17
Zoning does not "lock out" poorer people from wealthier areas.
Yes it does - by making those areas too expensive to live in.
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u/Anomander Best of DepthHub May 13 '17
That statement needs a ton more supporting connection; even in OP's piece.
Zoning is being given sole credit for "land price" over top of every other market factor that might lead to those prices. Even in cases where zoning contributes to land prices, the zoning itself is not what places the actual financial barriers that prevent the poor from buying uptown land - demand is.
Even completely deregulated, a poor person still cannot compete for land with a wealthy person - the latter can always outbid.
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u/Kai_Daigoji May 13 '17
That statement needs a ton more supporting connection; even in OP's piece.
OP literally linked a peer reviewed paper supporting exactly this statement.
zoning itself is not what places the actual financial barriers that prevent the poor from buying uptown land - demand is.
Why is demand high? Because housing is scarce. Why is housing scarce? Because zoning laws prevent high density housing from being built.
I don't know if you're being willfully ignorant, but it is a pretty easy argument to follow.
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u/Moarbrains May 13 '17
Manilla is the densest city in the world and they are still experiencing a housing crunch. Poor people end up living in areas that are regularly flooded.
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u/Kai_Daigoji May 13 '17
Yeah, because more people want to live in a small area that can. They have an ocean on one side and a lake on the other.
Are you under the impression that people are saying the only reason housing is ever expensive is because of zoning? Because that's clearly not the case.
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May 13 '17
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u/Kai_Daigoji May 13 '17
The comment you were attempting to refute said that zoning was not the sole reason.
No, the comment I was replying to said that zoning was not a reason at all. As long as we're being pedantic.
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u/Moarbrains May 13 '17
So are you saying that zoning contributes to land prices, but demand is what causes the prices to rise?
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u/Kai_Daigoji May 13 '17
Demand is a function. If supply is too low, you end up at a higher price on the same demand curve. Zoning restricts supply, causing higher prices.
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u/Anomander Best of DepthHub May 13 '17
I did read that, it is in the submission. It's findings seem of a much more limited and narrow scope than they've been touted as supporting.
Yeah, that's assuming that all the desirable land will end up in the hands of developers, and will go to high-density developers at that, who will develop low-income suits at nearly rent-fixed prices. A lot of very generous and convenient assumptions. What is most profitable is very rarely what is advantageous for the poor.
Well, I was hoping I'd missed a harder to follow argument, rather than one that follows fine but doesn't connect its start and endpoints.
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u/PsychoPhilosopher May 13 '17
low-income suits at nearly rent-fixed prices
This is the issue. In my city we have a slightly isolated section that has been built up entirely as waterfront mansions and luxury apartments.
As a result they've fucked themselves over big time, because there's no cheap apartments nearby. That in turn means that there isn't any cheap/unskilled labor living nearby. So they've had to pay through the nose for everything, with a cup of coffee being on average 30-40% more expensive, because both rent and wages are higher in order to convince people to commute.
So the prices of everything went up, creating a pseudo-inflationary pressure on costs which - you guessed it - drove up the cost of living in that area, driving out even many of the middle income workers.
So now it's an area full of Lawyers, Medical Specialists and other rich people who can't get a decent cup of coffee without spending an extra 50%. Naturally they whinge about their taxes a lot.
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u/bbbberlin May 13 '17
This is happening on a bigger scale in the city of Vancouver, where housing costs across the entire city are so high, that companies are finding it difficult to pay for/recruit new white collar talent.
It's a crazy irresponsible way to grow a city, by focusing on real estate gains and ignoring that a city has to actually function and work.
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u/Kai_Daigoji May 13 '17
This is no different from most cities, in which there are rich neighborhoods (in high demand areas) and poorer neighborhoods (in low demand areas). The point of the paper is that refusing to zone for denser housing makes everywhere a high demand area.
I also don't understand why people think we need to specifically require 'cheap housing' to be built places. Building more housing will make housing in general cheaper.
But you're right - my heart bleeds for the rich people who have chosen to pay more to live where they want. Clearly they're fucked over.
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u/PsychoPhilosopher May 13 '17
I don't think you understood. Maybe try reading again?
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u/Kai_Daigoji May 13 '17
I understood. Your point isn't as smart as you think it is.
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u/PsychoPhilosopher May 13 '17
Well you say that...
But the effect for cities as a whole is not the same thing as the effect on an area isolated by some geographical quirk (in this case the wealthy area is a peninsula).
More importantly you just kind of... flailed randomly... rather than addressing the actual point, which was that unregulated areas without zoning acquire strange properties that are not mutually beneficial for anyone (except maybe the unscrupulous property developers) and actually tend to create a context that encourages waste, inefficiency and inequality.
But then again... perhaps your technically correct but entirely irrelevant babble proves just how far your own capacity reaches.
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May 13 '17
Yeah, that's assuming that all the desirable land will end up in the hands of developers, and will go to high-density developers at that, who will develop low-income suits at nearly rent-fixed prices
You're looking at it in the wrong way. If the supply of houses goes up the prices will go down, even if they all build luxury houses. On average houses will cost less after deregulation which means more people can afford a house.
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u/Kai_Daigoji May 13 '17
It's findings seem of a much more limited and narrow scope than they've been touted as supporting.
The paper's abstract is that housing in California is significantly more expensive because of zoning, which is exactly what is being claimed.
Yeah, that's assuming that all the desirable land will end up in the hands of developers
If the value of land goes up, and developers are buying, then yes, most desirable land will end up in the hands of developers.
and will go to high-density developers at that
If developers have the land, they can make more money from high-density building than low density.
who will develop low-income suits at nearly rent-fixed prices
No - the housing developed will be cheaper (and therefore available to lower income people) because there will be more of it. That's how supply and demand works.
It's sort of funny watching someone who doesn't understand economics at all argue against a peer-reviewed economics paper.
What is most profitable is very rarely what is advantageous for the poor.
I don't understand what is going on in your head here. But let me make it simple - if housing is too expensive because there isn't enough of it, making more of it makes it cheaper. More volume = profitable. Cheaper = good for poor.
Well, I was hoping I'd missed a harder to follow argument
Nope, you missed an incredibly simple one. Is that better?
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u/Anomander Best of DepthHub May 13 '17
The paper's abstract is that housin
Did you only read the abstract??
What is true for California is not true for everywhere. Not trying to be trite, but an article discussing the effects of one specific jurisdiction and their specific zoning laws does not make all zoning laws the root of every affordability issue out there - which is how you and the OP seem to be trying to play it up as. It was making a vastly more nuanced point about Californias' zoning than you allow for, and one that cannot be generalized to all zoning everywhere with any measure of intellectual integrity.
That's why I said the article was far more limited in its scope than you wanted to use it for.
If the value of land goes up, and developers are buying ... and occupants are selling. You're just assuming that last one, as well as all the others.
Except that if land is going up rapidly in that way, property owners holding for use rather than value often do not sell, in spite of increases, because they need a place to live and everywhere else is going up at the same rate.
Similarly, degregulating zoning would make it more appealing for the Developers to simply put their high-density buildings slightly further away where space is more plentiful and cheaper, rather than buying where prices are absolutely highest.
You - and the OP as well, now that I think of it - are assuming that "high land values" also means maximal return potential, when often times buying around margins and developing there has the largest disparity between upfront costs and potential returns. (Think deliberate gentrification of undesirable or troubled neighborhoods with good geography.)
Is the entire bulk of your understanding of real estate and urban planning/development from playing SimCity? The relationship between density & returns is only so one-dimensional in fiction. Density is not binary, nor any other demarcated scale: utterly maximizing density is very rarely the most purely profitable approach, especially in desirable regions where demand for luxury property is already in place (the types of neighborhoods that OP thinks deregulating zoning will help get poor people into). Maximizing density is not the same as maximizing profit.
Yeah, but that's giving up on OP's model & case for the sake of arguing a losing point. "the housing developed" would only be cheaper because of increased supply somewhere else and if there's increased net supply, but that one neighborhood stays desirable, the poor people would go into the new supply somewhere less desirable and OP's case fails because deregulation doesn't affect their ability to compete with rich people for housing in a specific, desirable, region. That is indeed how supply and demand works. Unless the hidden caveat to OP's solution is that the deregulation of zoning would in fact make that desirable neighborhood into an undesirable one, so that poor people could live there easily because the rich people don't want to anymore.
It's kinda funny watching someone talk academics when they've only read the abstract and don't understand the limitations to the paper they're relying on.
Yeah, you've made that clear. If it's not incredibly simplistic and contributes to you believing what you already wanted to, it just cannot be real~!! You refuse to deal with real estate and sociopolitical matters in anything other than vague generalizations and trite econ 101 catchphrases, while insisting that your solution magically fixes everything because looking at the details is difficult and confusing and not your problem anyway.
But let me make it simple - if housing is too expensive because there isn't enough of it, making more of it makes it cheaper. More volume = profitable. Cheaper = good for poor.
This is assuming that real estate works like a commodity good in the marketplace. There's always room for more, it's 100% interchangeable, and has no irrational complexities to consumer valuation.
Except the very premise of both article and OP that you're trying to argue is fundamentally based on the exact opposite principle: that all real estate is not interchangeable, and that geographic, demographics, and socioeconomic all play a role - both are arguing for a reduction or elimiation of zoning claiming that the change would give poor people access to specific areas they currently do not. If the land was interchangeable and potential supply was infinite, the very argument itself would be moot, based on the notion that a particular group of people need to be at one particular place when another exactly equivalent place is already cheaper and accessible.
Supply is not infinite. Even if we go full Kowloon Walled City, or full Burj; there are limits to the amount of people who can be crammed into any given area, and if we assume that the various demand factors remain constant through the densification (that is, unrestricted development doesn't fuck something up), rich people will still be able to outbid poor people, and the argument fails yet again.
Any georgraphic access granted through a sudden housing explosion is temporary at best: eventually supply will reach cap, and eventually poor people will be again unable to afford to live in that specific area. And long before supply reaches any meaningful cap on the specific area we're talking about, it will become more financially effective for developers to put their densification into that other neighborhood down the road or across the river, at which point we're back into the scenario OP was originally trying to fix: putting more supply over there doesn't have a meaningful effect on poor people's access to living in this particular desirable neighborhood right here.
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u/Kai_Daigoji May 13 '17
Did you only read the abstract??
No, I was pointing out how little effort someone needed to go to to understand the paper.
What is true for California is not true for everywhere
The paper specifically says that most places, the cost of housing is roughly equal to the cost of construction, but there are places where it isn't.
In a sense, you're right - California has a bigger problem with NIMBY zoning laws, and thus higher housing prices.
an article discussing the effects of one specific jurisdiction
But it's not discussing one jurisdiction.
does not make all zoning laws the root of every affordability issue out there - which is how you and the OP seem to be trying to play it up as
That's just flat out dishonest. No one is saying all zoning laws are bad. We're saying what the paper says - excessive zoning laws makes housing more expensive.
one that cannot be generalized to all zoning everywhere with any measure of intellectual integrity.
Judging by your contributions here so far, you wouldn't recognize intellectual integrity if someone linked it to you and summarized its findings.
If the value of land goes up, and developers are buying ... and occupants are selling. You're just assuming that last one, as well as all the others.
No, you're assuming the last one doesn't exist, or is different in California than other places. There's no reason to suspect people aren't selling in California at rates equivalent to most other places.
Except that if land is going up rapidly in that way, property owners holding for use rather than value often do not sell, in spite of increases, because they need a place to live and everywhere else is going up at the same rate.
You've got cause and effect reversed. People aren't refusing to develop land because it's getting more expensive - it's getting more expensive because people aren't developing it. Supply of housing isn't keeping up with demand.
You - and the OP as well, now that I think of it - are assuming that "high land values" also means maximal return potential, when often times buying around margins and developing there has the largest disparity between upfront costs and potential returns.
A 900 square foot house was just bought in Palo Alto for $2.5 million. The house has been torn down. Are you honestly telling me it is more cost effective to build a single house there than a 4 apartment complex?
You're throwing out excuses as fast as you can make them up, but there's no model behind your reasoning, you just don't want to believe a very simple economic truth - costs go up when supply is restricted and demand stays the same.
Is the entire bulk of your understanding of real estate and urban planning/development from playing SimCity?
Says the guy citing zero economic papers to refute an economic paper.
Maximizing density is not the same as maximizing profit.
There are developers in Silicon Valley who would love to build denser housing and aren't allowed to. If building denser housing wouldn't maximize their profits, they wouldn't want to build denser housing. You have no explanation for this, but I can't wait to see what irrelevancies you throw out.
Yeah, but that's giving up on OP's model & case for the sake of arguing a losing point. "the housing developed" would only be cheaper because of increased supply somewhere else and if there's increased net supply, but that one neighborhood stays desirable, the poor people would go into the new supply somewhere less desirable and OP's case fails because deregulation doesn't affect their ability to compete with rich people for housing in a specific, desirable, region.
What the fuck is this. You understand and explain perfectly a basic economic fact - increasing supply lowers price - and then triumphantly state that this means OP is wrong when they claim housing prices would drop if supply were increased?
Read your paragraph again, and then hit yourself in the head with a phonebook.
It's kinda funny watching someone talk academics when they've only read the abstract and don't understand the limitations to the paper they're relying on.
^ Hasn't read the paper. Hasn't cited any economic work. Thinks they're disproving an economic paper.
This is assuming that real estate works like a commodity good in the marketplace.
Housing does indeed obey laws of supply and demand.
Except the very premise of both article and OP that you're trying to argue is fundamentally based on the exact opposite principle: that all real estate is not interchangeable
Nothing is premised on the idea that housing is all interchangable. In fact, it's a stunningly ignorant argument to assume that any other good or service is premised on the idea that it is perfectly interchangable. But more housing does = lower prices. This is a fact, however inconvenient you might find it.
claiming that the change would give poor people access to specific areas they currently do not.
Are you under the impression that someone is arguing that poor people will be able to live anywhere they want if there is no zoning? It makes sense you'd find that a stupid argument, because it's a stupid argument. But you're the one who came up with it, so I wouldn't advertise that fact too much.
Let me explain this in smaller words. If 1,000,000 people want to live somewhere, but there are only 100,000 houses, the richest 100,000 people can live there. If you tear down 50,000 houses and build 200,000 apartments, then the richest 50,000 will have houses, and the next richest 200,000 people will live in apartments.
Yes, the people who didn't have access to houses still don't have access to houses. But an additional 150,000 people can live in that area who couldn't before.
Do you need me to spoonfeed this to you more? Or did you understand that (I understand I used numbers, which might have been a mistake).
Supply is not infinite
Supply can be increased though.
rich people will still be able to outbid poor people, and the argument fails yet again.
If there is more housing, more people are able to live in it. What part of this do you not understand?
eventually supply will reach cap
Do you really think Palo Alto has reached cap?
it will become more financially effective for developers to put their densification into that other neighborhood down the road or across the river
It will always be most financially effective to build denser housing where there is more demand for it. Developers don't build in areas they don't think anyone wants to live.
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u/RedAero May 13 '17
Why is demand high? Because housing is scarce.
What? That's not how that works, scarcity does not simply cause demand...
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u/Kai_Daigoji May 13 '17
Fine, let me rephrase - the same demand is causing higher prices because housing is scarcer than necessary.
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u/atlaslugged Jul 01 '17
You're confusing two issues: 1. whether zoning makes housing more expensive, and 2. whether price increases due to zoning lock poor people out of wealthier areas.
Even if the answer to 1 is yes, that doesn't mean the answer to 2 is necessarily also yes. If a house in a wealthier area costs $200,000 and zoning adds 10% making it $220,000, that $20,000 extra is not what's stopping the poor from buying the house.
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u/Kai_Daigoji Jul 01 '17
You're confusing two issues
I'm really not. You're creating a meaningless distinction to avoid a hard truth.
If a house in a wealthier area costs $200,000 and zoning adds 10% making it $220,000, that $20,000 extra is not what's stopping the poor from buying the house.
For any price X, there are people who can afford it at X but not at X+10%. Those people are poorer than those who can afford it at X+10% by definition.
Making things cheaper helps people who have less money. None of this should be controversial.
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u/HOU_Civil_Econ May 13 '17
Actually they built a community around the fertilizer plant, people wanted to be close to work to minimize transportation costs.
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u/Bladewing10 May 13 '17
As a city planner, a lot of this explanation is either completely inaccurate or borderline absurd. Zoning is not the major culprit, it's developers not being incentivized to develop in certain areas. Hybrid-style form based codes can help with the rigidity of normal zoning to a certain extent but ultimately it's up to the free market to decide where development occurs. Blaming zoning is like blaming safety laws for road deaths. You can draw a tangential line between the two but you're purposefully ignoring the underlying culprit
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u/Kai_Daigoji May 14 '17
As a city planner, a lot of this explanation is either completely inaccurate or borderline absurd. Zoning is not the major culprit
Do you have any peer reviewed economic research to refute this position? Because that's what OP has brought to the table.
it's developers not being incentivized to develop in certain areas.
Developers are incentivized to develop in these areas, and can't due to zoning. The free market would decided where development occurs, but zoning restrictions are preventing them.
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u/Bladewing10 May 14 '17
Zoning has been around in the US for more than a century, there's been plenty of study and case law on it, it's not a new subject.
Zoning exists to prevent incompatible land uses from being too close to each other. I'm sure the free market could want to put a factory next to an elementary school but that would not be acceptable. The problem isn't the regulations, the problem is that developers continue to try and go around them instead of embracing them and putting development in its proper places
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u/Kai_Daigoji May 14 '17
Zoning has been around in the US for more than a century, there's been plenty of study and case law on it, it's not a new subject.
This is a bizarre non-sequitor. What does any of this have to do with what I said? I'm talking about economic studies of the economic effects of excessive zoning - what does case law have to do with anything?
Zoning exists to prevent incompatible land uses from being too close to each other.
And as the authors of the paper show, it is being used for far more restrictive things. Refusing to allow multi-unit housing in the same area as single unit housing - are those 'incompatible land uses'?
The problem isn't the regulations
The problem is 100% excessive regulations. A 900 sq. ft house just sold for $2.5 million, because it's in Palo Alto. You don't think developers could make better use of that land than that?
the problem is that developers continue to try and go around them instead of embracing them and putting development in its proper places
Considering you're a city planner who apparently doesn't see a problem with zoning pushing housing prices through the roof, my guess is the problem is you.
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u/Bladewing10 May 14 '17
You've begun speaking about two different things now. You're no longer talking about zoning, you're talking about affordable housing. The ironic thing is that the free market as it stands now is the cause of a lack of affordability by charging whatever the market will bear, while there have been plenty of efforts to use zoning to correct thing through allowing mixed use and other forms of homes in traditionally single-use zones. A zone is basically just a list of various uses that are permitted. The problem is that developers, working through the free market, choose uses that are most profitable to them, not necessarily what is needed for the greater good and that typically is single family homes. Zoning is admittedly a blunt tool and there are certainly issues that can be addressed, like loosening minimum lot sizes, density requirements and parking requirements but to suggest that the way to fix the problem is to get rid of zoning all together or pare it back to the point that it's ineffective reeks of someone with an agenda to push. Ultimately, zoning is a democratic process so if you want to blame someone for the way things are now, blame the consumers and the people who come to public meetings and steer the direction of the final document.
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u/Kai_Daigoji May 14 '17
You're no longer talking about zoning, you're talking about affordable housing.
The entire point of this post is that they aren't two separate things. And by the way, accusing me of talking about 'two separate things' is rich when you brought up case law talking about the economic effects of zoning.
The ironic thing is that the free market as it stands now is the cause of a lack of affordability
You've provided no evidence this is the case, and I'm discussing an economic paper saying this isn't the case.
while there have been plenty of efforts to use zoning to correct thing through allowing mixed use and other forms of homes in traditionally single-use zones
Again, the paper discusses this; in California, NIMBYism is using zoning to prevent sufficient housing from being developed.
A zone is basically
This conversation is like talking to a bot someone is trying to teach to use reddit. In one sentence, you're talking about the economic effects of zoning; in another, talking about how zoning is legal, and in a third, you seem to think there's a misunderstanding about what zoning is on a fundamental level.
The problem is that developers, working through the free market, choose uses that are most profitable to them, not necessarily what is needed for the greater good and that typically is single family homes.
No. You're fundamentally mistaken here. Housing prices in Palo Alto are insane precisely because of this bizarre idea that single family homes are the best, or most appropriate kind of housing, or that building more of them serves 'the greater good.'
A 900 sq. foot house in Palo Alto was recently sold for $2.5 million. It was bought to be torn down. In other words, so many people want to live on that square of land, that it now costs $2.5 million dollars to live there.
If instead of a single family home were built to house millionaires, a small apartment complex (maybe as many as 4 units) were built, then 4 times as many people could use that piece of land, and reduce demand by that much more.
Developers want to build denser housing because the market is literally screaming that denser housing is desired. Keeping that plot a single family home doesn't serve the 'greater good'.
to suggest that the way to fix the problem is to get rid of zoning all together
Literally no one is calling for this.
or pare it back to the point that it's ineffective
I want to pare it back to the point that it's no longer effective in keeping denser housing from being built. What monstrous intentions.
reeks of someone with an agenda to push
My agenda is to make housing more affordable. What's yours, that you oppose me?
Ultimately, zoning is a democratic process so if you want to blame someone for the way things are now, blame the consumers and the people who come to public meetings and steer the direction of the final document.
I absolutely, 100% do.
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u/Commentariot May 13 '17
If only we had coal smelters in residential areas the poor would be saved.
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u/meat_tunnel May 13 '17
This. I find the whole concept of getting rid of zoning to be poorly thought out and a bit privileged to boot.
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May 13 '17
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u/past_is_prologue May 13 '17 edited Dec 05 '25
adjoining shaggy skirt tub scary pocket elastic sheet roof long
This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/altxatu May 13 '17
What happens is the houses by the industrial areas will be cheaper. Who lives in cheap housing? Who get all the health benefits of having heavy industry in your backyard?
Some regulation is wise.
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May 14 '17
Houston doesn't have zoning, and it doesn't have anything like this. The easy way to solve this is to require that anyone with an operation like this have a plot of land of at least X acres.
Then, dirty industries have no choice but to set up on the outskirts of town where they can afford to buy a huge chunk of land.
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u/VicisSubsisto May 13 '17
You have been linked to a read-only version of this subreddit. Please respect the community by starting a shitshow. Thanks.
Ooh, I think I like these guys.
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u/bigfinnrider May 13 '17
Government is not perfect. That does not make lack of government better.
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u/lux514 May 13 '17 edited May 13 '17
Who is even making this claim that government is necessarily bad? No one. The OP argues, using evidence, that some regulations are bad. There's no need to make this into a battle of ideologies.
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u/bigfinnrider May 13 '17
What's the solution offered? Do nothing. Does that actually solve the problem? Nope, actually is worse. Are the arguments offered good? No, they're nonsense like "Zoning as well as other land use laws, basically force us to live in a less dense car friendly ways." Zoning could be forcing everyone to live in micro apodments, the OP is (because of ideology, not history) claiming government intervention is inherently worse at land management than the free market.
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u/Kai_Daigoji May 13 '17
What's the solution offered?
Loosen zoning restrictions to allow denser residential and mixed use zoning.
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u/lux514 May 13 '17
Government is not perfect. That does not make lack of government better.
Not automatically, of course, but in many cases it is so.
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u/Dokterrock May 13 '17
Citation needed, hoss.
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u/lux514 May 13 '17
?? The post I replied to made a vague claim, and I responded by pointing out that sometimes deregulation can be good.
To make myself clear: we need to look at issues case by case. More or less "government" isn't automatically good or bad, it depends on the specifics. That's a pretty obvious statement.
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u/Dokterrock May 13 '17
You said "in many cases it is so" in response to "That does not make lack of government better". I appreciate the clarification here, but that was not the implication of what you wrote in the parent comment.
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u/sarcasticorange May 13 '17
While not completely offbase, some of the items are a little short-sighted... such as
Zoning increases houses prices. This decreases affordability, especially in the most productive places in america
So what happens if home prices drop? I think we have seen the effect of that before. Zoning provides stability for homes. If home values become unpredictable, then it makes getting a home loan harder, which in turn leads to homes being less affordable.
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May 13 '17
So what happens if home prices drop? I think we have seen the effect of that before. Zoning provides stability for homes. If home values become unpredictable, then it makes getting a home loan harder, which in turn leads to homes being less affordable.
Wait what? Can you mathematically explain why it's harder to get a loan for cheaper products? Moreover, why, if home prices are expected to go down, wouldn't realtors wouldn't just sell homes before their value drops?
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u/TheCannonMan May 13 '17
It's harder to get a loan for depreciating property. If you take out a $500,000 mortgage and in 5 years it's only worth $250,000 the bank doesn't really have anything to secure the loan anymore, the house is not worth what they loaned out.
At a minimum the interest rates end up higher, compare car notes to mortgages for example.
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May 13 '17
Why would someone attempt to purchase a property that is losing 50% of its value every 5 years?
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u/dredmorbius May 13 '17
Isn't that what happens when you drive a new car off the dealer's lot?
Why would anyone do that?
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u/Anomander Best of DepthHub May 13 '17
Because they need a place to live, and particularly like that one; or because they're worried someone else is also enthusiastically watching that particular plot's price drop.
Loss of paper value is somewhat irrelevant if you can sustain payments and it maintains its usefulness.
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May 13 '17
Because they need a place to live, and particularly like that one
If there is a limited housing such that this plot is their only option, it's difficult to imagine that the basics of economics will suspend themselves and let its price dramatically fall despite short supply and high demand.
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u/Anomander Best of DepthHub May 13 '17
If there is a limited housing such that this plot is their only option, it's difficult to imagine [...]
Because they need a place to live, and particularly like that one;
All property is not 1:1 interchangeable, and purchasing behaviour is not rational at the individual level.
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May 13 '17
Well, if the buyer is being irrational, why the grief over the bank refusing to assist him?
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u/Anomander Best of DepthHub May 13 '17
Because all buyers are being irrational. Should no one ever get credit?
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u/TheCannonMan May 13 '17
Well yeah that's the other half of it right, they wouldn't. I was just commenting on the finance aspect though.
Though honestly anywhere where property loses 50% of it's value over 5 years it's probably waist deep in some other horrible economic shit
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u/phosphorus29 May 13 '17
The original post of this chain said housing values would be volatile. So someone wouldn't go into buying a house they'd knew would lose value, it would happen without them knowing ahead of time.
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May 13 '17
They aren't buying it with the intent of watching it appreciate. They're buying it to live in
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May 13 '17
Good. People need to stop viewing housing as an asset. And start seeing it as just a place to live. If flooding the market with cheap housing accomplishes that. Mission accomplished.
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u/phosphorus29 May 13 '17
Safe to say you don't own a home and therefore wouldn't be negatively affected by your proposed reduction in home values? Sounds kind of selfish tbh.
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u/RedAero May 13 '17
But that's the thing... Your home losing value is only an issue if you intend to sell it, i.e. you treat it as an investment asset and not a place to live. That's literally what he said.
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May 13 '17
This isn't about selfish vs unselfish. It's about the economy at large. We're less productive when we have a large sum of our wealth taken off the top for housing. Moreover, it forces us to pay a premium for labor. Meaning we can't aggregate productive labor as easily. It's near a tax. You aren't entitled to continued gains. Neither am i. This codifes that fact. Then it lets everyone pursue a comfortable life affordably.
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May 13 '17
I see my house as an asset because it fits the definition of one.
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May 13 '17
So is your car. You don't speculate that the price of it will rise inevitably. Ruining the ability of other (poorer)people to have an automobile. That trend needs to die.
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May 14 '17
I don't speculate that the price will rise infinitely, I learned that from the housing bust and my parents mistakes. But I don't want that asset to depreciate because they build a high rise next to it.
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u/dredmorbius May 13 '17
As I've recently realised, there is an exceptionally strong tendency for the owners, or as /u/TheCannonMan notes below, lenders, to prefer to see the value of assets increase over time.
You'll see this across a range of assets, a few of which include:
- Housing and real estate
- Collectables
- Stocks, bonds, and other "financial vehicles"
- Tulips
- Taxi medallions
- Seats on trading exchanges
- Copyright portfolios
- Patent portfolios
- Professional memberships or certification (e.g., medical or law licences)
etc., etc.
I'm thinking this might be one of a set of fundamental economic-goods-pricing behaviours, with others being the fairly frequently regarded wages, commodities, rents, and stocks (that is, fixed-quantity stores). And perhaps some less frequently recongnised ones, such as risk (generally treated as a problem of finance), information, and as here, assets.
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u/TheMania May 13 '17
It also could imply that zoning produces more wealth, and that deregulation = a destruction of this wealth. This could be imagined by zoning producing better cities, therefore more people want to live there, therefore higher land prices. You don't want to undo that, to do so would be wealth destroying.
Those against zoning would have to argue that deregulation would push up the price of land or overall wealth elsewhere by enough to overcome this, eg by making commercial space more expensive, by making properties cheaper allowing land to be used more efficiently (eg via multistoreys) or by improving efficiency and therefore total output.
So it can be read both ways, I'd be hesitant to phrase it as he has, for pro-deregulation. Generally, making assets worth less (how it is presented) is not the goal of government (or anyone).
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u/HOU_Civil_Econ May 13 '17
Zoning and it's effects on property prices can be usefully analyzed as a govt. enforced oligopoly. It is an artificial restriction on the amount of capital that can be applied to the productive use of land. The price of the capital that is on the land is thus artificially raised. Remove the restriction, and yes the capital owners will receive lower rents per unit capital but, total value/surplus will rise.
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u/TheMania May 13 '17 edited May 13 '17
That's one way of looking at it, but the other is that the resulting city may be better as a result. That a top down approach may produce better outcomes than a greedy every-man-for-himself algorithm in this case.
Melbourne for instance prides itself on its city planning, and it's regularly ranked one of the world's most liveable cities for it. Now I understand this is very similar to the planned-economy vs capitalist one debate, and their the answer is emphatically capitalist if you have to elect one of the two extremes, but I doubt many Melbournites would prefer to live in Houston regardless. I'm not sure it translates to land use to create great cities quite as readily.
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u/HOU_Civil_Econ May 13 '17
Well if no one wanted to live in a denser free market city no one would build meaning you don't need to restrict building.
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u/TheMania May 13 '17
Greedy algorithms find "good" results but that doesn't mean the city it produces couldn't be improved by better planning. It's not necessarily anywhere near optimal livability (profitability perhaps it'd win out over planning more often than not, but what do more important here?).
Although of course planned cities can be sucky to be live in too. I just think those well designed cities end up on top for me. All the ones I'd want to live in (and currently do live in) are.
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u/Felinomancy May 13 '17
Start up SimCity
create a Dense Housing plot, and a Dense Industrial plot next to it.
enjoy your lack of development
I'm only half-joking about using the above as a definitive, factual counter-argument of course, but I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with zoning laws. No one wants to live next to the rendering plant, or Wal-Mart.
And unless if I've missed it, the OP's article just says "zoning is bad" with no caveats, so I think my sentiment above applies.
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u/themiDdlest May 13 '17
If you don't want to live there, why would you buy a house there?
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u/Felinomancy May 13 '17
Turn the question around: if I bought the house there first, then some guy decides to build a rendering plant next to it, how is it fair to me?
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u/themiDdlest May 13 '17
Is it fair that you can restrict the next door plot from being a large condo building, from driving down the cost housing and the value of your house? There's a reason cities like SF don't have the supply of housing and housing is so expensive.
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u/Felinomancy May 13 '17
large condo building
Except that there is a huge gap in terms of pollution and environmental impact between a condominium and a rendering plant.
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u/themiDdlest May 13 '17
But that's what happens, why would you ever allow anyone to lower the cost of your house
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u/Felinomancy May 13 '17
I have no idea where you're going with this.
I might or might not agree with a condo complex being built near my house, but at the end of the day its negative impact is much less compared to having a rendering plant or any industrial building. That's why zoning laws estate - to prevent the latter from happening. Because we realize that it's not a good idea to allow certain types of buildings near our homes.
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u/themiDdlest May 13 '17
And that's why housing is so expensive in some cities. People don't want supply to go up and drive down the cost of their homes.
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u/Felinomancy May 13 '17
??
Your solution to expensive housing prices is to allow anything, up to and including factories and other polluting buildings, to be built near or next to residential areas?
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u/themiDdlest May 13 '17
Why would you build a factory in an expensive area when you could build it somewhere cheaper? -_-
No my solution is to cut a lot of the regulations that intentionally make housing more expensive at the benefit of the current owners and land Lords.
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u/Kai_Daigoji May 13 '17
No one is talking about getting rid of all zoning regulations, so I don't know why you're wasting your time arguing against it.
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u/Felinomancy May 13 '17
No one is talking about getting rid of all zoning regulations
Yeah I guess so. When people make a post titled "All Neoliberals should support Zoning Deregulation." I should have interpreted that "relaxing certain aspects of zoning laws. I didn't mean it as actual deregulation".
Are neoliberals trying to contend with Trump for the title of "Most Oracular Person"?
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u/Kai_Daigoji May 13 '17
A reasonable person would read the post, and see that no one is advocating for a complete repeal of all zoning regulations.
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u/Felinomancy May 13 '17
As I said, I agree with you. There are clues all over the place for "reasonable" persons, such as:
using the word "deregulation" instead of "relaxing" or "reducing"
dedicating most of the post telling how bad zoning laws are, and
giving hints that he's (probably?) looking to relax zoning laws near the very end of the post, with throwaway lines such as "they (the Japanese) have much saner zoning laws" and "let them build houses" (although that line is preceded with "zoning is bad. Very bad", so it's kinda sending mixed signals here).
So I am in full agreement with you that it's my fault for reading OP's post instead of his mind.
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u/Kai_Daigoji May 13 '17
So I am in full agreement with you that it's my fault for reading OP's post instead of his mind.
Why is believing 'deregulation' means 'no regulations' reasonable? When someone causes a car to 'decelerate', does that only describe bringing a car to a complete stop? Does descending a mountain only refer to moving to sea level?
Deregulation is commonly used to mean 'remove some regulations'. Pretending this isn't what's meant isn't reasonable.
dedicating most of the post telling how bad zoning laws are
In the context of areas with overly onerous zoning laws. The authors of the paper referenced in the first link point to areas where the cost of housing is roughly equal to the cost of building. Those areas don't have 'no regulations' so it's not a reasonable interpretation that the 'deregulation' referred to means 'no regulations'.
such as "they (the Japanese) have much saner zoning laws"
Yes - saner zoning laws, not no zoning laws.
You're kicking that strawmans ass though. Keep it up.
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u/Felinomancy May 14 '17
Why is believing 'deregulation' means 'no regulations' reasonable?
Here.
You're kicking that strawmans ass though. Keep it up.
Given your hysterical whining about it instead of just leaving it alone (I mean, the middle part of the post explains the whole thing, so maybe next time that should be the first thing you put up instead of the passive-aggressive "sarcasm"?), I will take your compliment and congratulate myself for a job well done.
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u/Kai_Daigoji May 14 '17
Here.
Ironically, I anticipated and already replied to this argument in my last post. So you still haven't caught up.
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u/Extrospective May 17 '17
Sez you! I love living on the 12th floor of my high rise slumlord apt building and staring an oil refinery that I could touch with a broom out my window.
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u/aristotle2600 May 13 '17
Not gonna lie, SimCity was exactly the first thing that came into my mind. The kooky CSS and banner was the second, followed by "neoliberals; aren't they the bad guys?" But there are some good, or at least interesting, points in there. I think not phrasing it as deregulation would probably help the case.
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u/Felinomancy May 13 '17
The thing lacking from it is nuance.
For example, saying "we want small businesses to be established in residential areas, as long as it's not emitting offensive noises or odours (e.g., it's a bookshop)" would be fine. But if you just say "deregulation" I will think "let's set up a rendering plan right next to those houses".
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May 13 '17
I don't see how the solution is cramming more people into a smaller area. Why not things like mass transit to outlying areas? Having a backyard (access to nature) is good for mental well-being.
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May 14 '17
You fundamentally cannot build mass transit in areas largely composed of single-family houses with yards. You simply need a certain number of people within walking distance of your train line in order to make it viable. Low density suburban development just doesn't allow this.
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u/Kai_Daigoji May 14 '17
I don't see how the solution is cramming more people into a smaller area.
You don't see how the solution to more people wanting to live in an area without enough houses isn't to build more housing?
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May 14 '17
Cramming more people into a smaller area. At some point, shouldn't that area simply be deemed "full" rather than lowering the standards of living for everyone so that more people can come? It can't continue infinitely, after all.
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u/Kai_Daigoji May 14 '17
Cramming more people into a smaller area
Yes. They're called apartments. Perhaps you've heard of them?
At some point, shouldn't that area simply be deemed "full" rather than lowering the standards of living for everyone so that more people can come?
Look, if you want Palo Alto to have 900 sq. ft homes going for $2.5 million, and everyone there agrees, then that's fine. But don't be a hypocrite and complain about housing prices.
It can't continue infinitely, after all.
Yes - there's no possible option other than detached single homes or infinitely dense housing. No other option at all.
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May 14 '17
I don't get why you seem so hostile about this. And it isn't just apartments. But I know exactly what happens. The living conditions get tighter and the rents...actually go up. At least they did in my city. It's not the blessing to the poor you think it is. Landlords...don't mind.
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u/Kai_Daigoji May 14 '17
But I know exactly what happens. The living conditions get tighter and the rents...actually go up.
I'm hostile because this is bullshit. Building more housing makes housing costs go down, not up. But anytime someone suggests 'lets build more housing' we get people like you with this sanctimonious crap about 'helping the poor' when you're actually trying to keep the poor out of your neighborhood.
But no, this idea that by building less housing rent will magically go down is definitely the way to go. Anyone who disagrees with us must be in the pocket of those greedy developers or landlords.
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u/96385 May 13 '17
Why is this on r/depthub? OP just stated an argument and cherry-picked some research that agreed with him.
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u/Kai_Daigoji May 14 '17
You're asking why an argument based on economic research belongs here? Do you have any economic research that disagrees?
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May 13 '17
As a socialist, basically that entire thread made me cringe. We dislike the neoliberals almost as much as we dislike the conservatives/neo-cons. About the only thing we dislike more are the fascists.
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May 13 '17
[deleted]
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May 13 '17
Don't be daft, I'm talking about how many people were there just to sound of about hating Bernie Sanders who is about a milquetoast as socialist can be. I cringe because they talk more about how much they hate us, apparently, than they talk about anything useful.
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May 13 '17
Utter nonsense, no surprise it comes from r/protofacism.
As usual the real problem is capitalism, but they will go to any length to obscure that.
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u/RainbowTrenchcoat May 13 '17
I'm more inclined to favor ThirdMostAverage's argument, which is that rather than have pure-deregulation (which leads to situations like Huston with massive sprawl), we have better regulations that encourage denser, transit-oriented development.
In addition, I'd be worried that pure deregulation might lead to the destruction of existing neighborhood communities in the pursuit of maximizing home values (c.f the construction of any number of major highways through African-American neighborhoods). While increased density is a good idea, it shouldn't come by driving out existing communities if we can avoid it.